Alive: Part II Complete

For the past year I’ve been working on and off on completing my fourth book, Alive: Part II. I am proud to say that a rough draft is now complete at approximately 60,000 words. The book came out shorter than I intended but I’ll deal with issues of length later. The story ended how I wanted it to end and it feels like a good place for my characters’ lives to wrap up.

Now, I will be taking a break from the book for a few weeks before I go back to edit. In the meantime, I’ll start brainstorming and possibly start writing my fifth book, Hazard. This will be based on, or inspired by the poetry piece of the same name. While most of my books have dealt with issues of racial discrimination, this one will focus more on mental health and self-esteem. If you’ve read the poetry piece you might wonder how that ties in, but I will reveal that the resurrected protagonist took his own life.

Hazard is a work I have been waiting to flesh out for a while. The protagonist and the backstory was clearest in my mind, but I have numerous details to sort out with the world-building. The pursuit of publication is another issue, but it’s one I won’t worry about too much now. I will keep trying to get The Doctor published, but aside from that I want to focus on becoming a better writer and building a platform for myself.

Next Publishing Mission

Earlier this year, I committed myself to finishing my fourth book, Alive: Part II and a short story entitled The Swap.

Alive: Part II is about 3/4 complete, and The Swap is now complete.

Instead of trying to get any of my books published for the moment, I want to pursue publication for The Swap. I have submitted it to two magazines so far, with one of those submissions ultimately being a waste. I made the mistake of assuming the manuscript format was similar to what is accepted for novel submissions (you can laugh at my mistake) but short story ones are a different creature entirely. I am pretty sure the editor of the magazine didn’t bother reading the story before he rejected it, and I can’t blame him.

There aren’t that many magazines that accept science-fiction stories of my story’s length so I don’t have that many outlets to submit to. I am hoping that one of the less than 10 options I have works out, but the odds of that are very slim.

If the short story submissions don’t work out I’ll likely post it here and then try to gain some traction online through other outlets. Trying to publish a book without any previous publishing experience is almost impossible so I figure that having a real publishing credit under my belt can help (marginally) when I continue that search.

The Black Hole of Social Media

I reached out to a former professor for advice on developing a career in writing and one of her main pieces of advice was to avoid social media as much as possible, it “eats time like acid”. This was something I started to accept months ago. I would open up YouTube with the intention of watching one video and end up spending 10+ minutes travelling down the black hole of related videos. I would open up Instagram with the intention of posting to my accounts and leaving, and end up spending another 10+ minutes scrolling through one account or page after another.

I began using Instagram within the past year in an attempt to build my following but I am not sure if it has been as helpful as I hoped. Twitter already taught me that people can like or even retweet your content without really engaging with it e.g. clicking a link and reading a blog post. I worry that the same thing is happening with Instagram. I have a small following but I know those followers and likes are not worth anything when it comes to them reading the content I create on this blog.

Part of the issue is that there are so many accounts and so many people wanting to gain their following. I try to engage with the small group of people who regularly like my content and checking in on 15+ accounts daily can still eat up a lot of time. As I complain about my need to return a favour I can understand why it can be difficult to go to someone’s site and become a regular visitor, even if you want to.

I have considered deleting my Instagram accounts but I am wondering if I need them simply because it looks good to have them. One day when I (hopefully) get an agent, will she see my lack of an Instagram account as a disadvantage for my marketability. At that point will a few hundred followers be better than none? Maybe it will be worth it then but right now all I truly see is a drain of data. I blame myself for the lost time since it is my attention span that causes the issue.

I have now made a resolution to spend my time on the bus either writing or reading. No more listening to music and I will allow myself ten minutes to post to my two accounts. The current book I’m working on, “Alive: Part II” began with a short poem I wrote and I hope to generate some more roots while I spend time travelling to a place I hope to escape soon.

My Mind

Hello everyone,

Sorry for a long gap in posting. A lot of things have come up this week, but no excuses. Back to it with a piece inspired by one of the shorter poems I posted to my @wmoviegrapevine instagram. A lot has been going through my head recently and I have been working on managing stress and expectations, so I felt like doing a piece on the mind was appropriate. Since I post a lot of pieces to instagram that never get posted anywhere else I figure that I may start posting more original pieces on the site.

stairwell

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I am still trying to navigate the maze,

The labryinth,

Dark recesses,

Patches of blinding light,

Flat land,

Steep mountains,

Sheer cliffs,

The mysteries of my mind continue to elude me,

Its terrain changes with each smile or frown I see,

With every word of encouragement,

With every insult,

With every success,

With every failure.